Best way to install VirtIO drivers on Windows guest

[sacarias]

I just noticed the Windows 10 best practices doc has been updated
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_10_guest_best_practices
and I got some few doubts regarding the changes.

First, this is how I used to install the Windows guest and all of its driver stuff:
--during Windows installation load VirtIO driver ISO and manually load drivers vioscsi, NetKVM, Balloon, vioserial, and qxldod (last 2 for SPICE)
--after first boot on Windows, for Balloon installation, copy from ISO E:\Balloon\w10\amd64 to C:\Program files\Balloon, then "BLNSVR.exe -i"
--for SPICE, manually download Windows SPICE agent (zip file) from SPICE website, uncompress, and "vdservice install", "net start vdservice"

Now, the best practices doc mentions a "virtio-win-gt-x64.msi" installer, which is now included in latest VirtIO ISO.

Is this msi installer actually just equivalent to the whole manual process above?
Can I just load only SCSI disk driver during Windows installation, then after first boot run the msi to install all remaining VirtIO drivers, balloon and SPICE agent?

Also, I have never actually installed the qemu-guest-agent in the Windows guests. Should I really include it as part of best practices? What are its benefits?

Thanks.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Is this msi installer actually just equivalent to the whole manual process above?

Yes, it's a one step for all remaining drivers approach.

Can I just load only SCSI disk driver during Windows installation, then after first boot run the msi to install all remaining VirtIO drivers, balloon and SPICE agent?

Yes, that will work.

Also, I have never actually installed the qemu-guest-agent in the Windows guests. Should I really include it as part of best practices? What are its benefits?

Totally depends on what you do with the VMs. It allows to show network info from inside the guest in the VM summary panel of the PVE interface, issues freeze/thaw filesystem command before/after backup - which can help to get better consistency for live backups. You can get various other information. Execute commands in the inside of the guest triggered from the outside (see https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/qm.1.html search for qm guest exec) set user password, ...